Marketing Your First Book

00:00:05:13 - 00:00:26:22

Cathy Hannabach

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Marketing Your First Book. My name is Cathy Hannabach. I'm the founder and CEO of Ideas on Fire, the academic editing and indexing agency that helps interdisciplinary scholars turn brilliant ideas into publishable, often field-shaping books. I'm very excited to welcome you to this final spring session in our First Book Publishing Series.

 

00:00:26:24 - 00:00:50:10

Cathy Hannabach

This is a six-part series that walks you through every stage of that first book process, from proposal to publication and beyond. You can view all of the past sessions from this past year on our website at ideasonfire.net. In this series, I'm joined by acquisitions editors, editorial directors, production editors, and marketing directors, such as are here today, from more than a dozen leading university presses.

 

00:00:50:12 - 00:01:13:00

Cathy Hannabach

We are here to demystify that first book publishing process. At Ideas on Fire, we've helped hundreds of scholars refine their book proposals and book manuscripts, including many for first books, strengthen their arguments, and ultimately bring those books into the world. I find that first books are a particular joy to support. They have a kind of different affective or emotional thing to them,

 

00:01:13:02 - 00:01:35:10

Cathy Hannabach

and that's one of the reasons why I designed this series. I'm very excited to be in conversation here today with Allison Means, who's the associate director and marketing director of the University of Iowa Press, as well as Cameron Ludwick, who is the associate director for marketing and sales at Duke University Press. The three of us are here to demystify academic book marketing:

 

00:01:35:12 - 00:01:55:15

Cathy Hannabach

what that actually involves, what your press is doing behind the scenes, and where your role as an author fits in. Now, I find that this is an area where there's often a lot of confusion, and we'll be talking about that. There's also often a lot of pressure, which we'll also be talking about, particularly for first-time authors who are juggling a whole host of other responsibilities.

 

00:01:55:17 - 00:02:16:04

Cathy Hannabach

If you have questions for our speakers during the webinar, you can click the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen to submit those. We'll have time at the end to get to those questions in Q&A. So I'd love to start our conversation here today by grounding us in the basics—what marketing actually looks like across the life of an academic book.

 

00:02:16:06 - 00:02:32:16

Cathy Hannabach

So, to our speakers, can you walk us through what your marketing team does at your press for each book, from pre-publication through production and post-publication? Allison, can we start with you and what this looks like at the University of Iowa Press?

 

00:02:32:18 - 00:02:54:07

Allison Means

Sure. At Iowa, I like to say that we think of marketing as a long arc versus a single moment. That starts when in pre-publication, when we think of the foundation being laid. So at this point, we are identifying the book's primary audiences—scholarly, classroom, professional—in general, and we're shaping messaging accordingly.

 

00:02:54:09 - 00:03:19:11

Allison Means

We are focusing on metadata like the book description, keywords, BISAC codes, and author bios, all of which affect discoverability on Google, Amazon, and library vendor platforms. We are starting our planning, our publicity angle, meaning we're asking questions: What conversations is this book entering? Where could it land, be that journals, podcast review outlets, and conferences?

 

00:03:19:13 - 00:03:47:16

Allison Means

And then during the production we think of this as refining and activating. So that is when we are finalizing jacket copy and cover feedback. We are building our seasonal catalog lists that your book will go into and seeing where it will fall on the list. We are creating advanced electronic galleys, and we're starting that outreach to anyone we have identified as needing really early contact or a long lead time for whatever reason.

 

00:03:47:18 - 00:04:07:02

Allison Means

This is also when we are coordinating with you, with the author, on things like conference timing and other pub date adjacent opportunities. And then post-publication, as the book is out in the world, our work is definitely not done. It just shifts. So we are still, at this time, reaching out to potential reviewers.

 

00:04:07:02 - 00:04:34:15

Allison Means

That happens for academic books for a long time. We are focusing on award submissions and course adoptions, and we are keeping an eye out for special topical tie-ins or news hooks. We always love working on academic books because they have a long tail, and their marketing really reflects that. Some of our most successful books find their readership months or even years after publication.

 

00:04:34:15 - 00:04:36:05

Allison Means

And that is very normal.

 

00:04:36:07 - 00:05:00:07

Cameron Ludwick

Yeah, great. I don't have a ton to add to what Allison said. We do pretty much the same thing. A couple of things I wanted to highlight, though. Your book lives with us forever. So, like in the marketing team, when Allison talks about the long arc, we are seeing your book, oftentimes I'm seeing books at contract level, I'm seeing them at the editorial board level, getting ready, planning, seeing what's coming down the pipeline.

 

00:05:00:09 - 00:05:18:04

Cameron Ludwick

And then once your book is out, it lives with us. It doesn't go back to your editor. It doesn't go back to design. It stays with marketing and sales. So it is within our best interests to do everything we can, work all of the angles work with you, because we want you to have a good home with us, to backlist well.

 

00:05:18:06 - 00:05:35:17

Cameron Ludwick

I also want to highlight the marketing questionnaire, which is probably the most important tool that you give to us to work with as a marketing team. At Duke, we're often looking at the marketing questionnaire when your book is transmitted, that is, when it's going to the editorial, design, and production teams and starting to become an actual book.

 

00:05:35:19 - 00:05:57:10

Cameron Ludwick

That's when we want you to complete this marketing questionnaire, really to think about who are my contacts? What have I already done to build a platform? What are the awards I want to do? What are the conferences I attend? Who are the influencers in my field? One of the main things I would love to see authors do more of is really refine their key selling points and their comparable titles.

 

00:05:57:12 - 00:06:17:20

Cameron Ludwick

A lot of times with academic books, I get a lot of marketing questionnaires that will highlight themes or topics in the book as key selling points. But that's not quite it. What we really want is why people need to pick up and read this book and why right now. Those unique themes are absolutely a part of that.

 

00:06:17:22 - 00:06:33:22

Cameron Ludwick

But it is kind of a tweak to framing that I would love to see authors think more about. We can talk about comping in a little bit as well, but it really behooves you to see what is happening in your fields. What are other people doing? What are other publishers doing and looking at your field

 

00:06:33:24 - 00:06:54:13

Cameron Ludwick

most recently? So only looking at the past 3 to 5 years, not looking what was happening back in 1999, which is often another fun pitfall. So, yeah, I think that's the main stuff and I think Allison nailed it. It's getting the metadata together as well, which is probably the most important piece of publishing today, and

 

00:06:54:15 - 00:07:00:23

Cameron Ludwick

all of the things. There's plenty of author toolkits on websites you can browse to find more.

 

00:07:01:00 - 00:07:29:00

Cathy Hannabach

I think this is really helpful for folks to understand what's happening on the press side, and we're going to dive a little deeper into individual things that were just mentioned there. But I want to shift to the author side of the equation for a minute. From your perspective, what are some of the specific contributions that authors can make to support their book’s reach and ultimately to make the biggest difference in how a book gets seen and taken up?

 

00:07:29:02 - 00:07:31:02

Cameron Ludwick

I also need to kick start again.

 

00:07:31:04 - 00:07:31:17

Cathy Hannabach

Sure.

 

00:07:31:22 - 00:07:48:20

Cameron Ludwick

I can go. For me, it's networking. It's working your network. And I get it, authors are shy. This is not me tooting my own horn, because I get squirrely about it. I have published books, and I get so squirrely about that. It's so hard to self-promote and to tell people about it.

 

00:07:48:22 - 00:08:08:19

Cameron Ludwick

I get it, it's so hard. But that is the single most important best thing you can do: work your network at conferences, in classes. It's the art of the hand sell. So talking to your local booksellers or local librarians about your book. And just putting it in your email signature that you've got a book coming with a link to the book page.

 

00:08:08:20 - 00:08:15:23

Cameron Ludwick

Super simple, but it spreads the word. Work your networks. Don't be shy.

 

00:08:16:00 - 00:08:37:08

Allison Means

That's exactly it. I agree completely. If you want a fun little acronym, we think of it as context, connection, and clarity. You are the expert in your field and you know your readers and your communities better than we ever could. So we really rely on you to help us identify these conferences and listservs

 

00:08:37:08 - 00:09:07:22

Allison Means

we should be alerting, associations you're part of, or specific classrooms, or interdisciplinary audiences for outreach. This just gives us a sharper focus for what we know how to do, which is market. I'll also just add that responsiveness to connections that come about in a really timely manner is super helpful. So if you hear from your marketing person, timely feedback on yes, I can do this interview, I'm going to do this Q&A.

 

00:09:07:22 - 00:09:28:18

Allison Means

Just think of it as something, we want you to think of it as something you're going to prioritize. And understand that even though the review may not be months out or the interview may not appear for a while, the best thing that you can do is let us know you're interested so that we can help you make that connection and move it forward.

 

00:09:28:20 - 00:09:54:19

Allison Means

And then just to reaffirm what Cameron said about tweaking your thinking a little bit on that clarity part of you helping us explain why your book matters now. It helps us enormously if you can come up with one or two sentences that anybody could understand and that we can use in perpetuity.

 

00:09:54:19 - 00:10:04:16

Allison Means

Even as those things change or new sentences come into your mind as something else happens, we want to hear those from you so that we can use them as well.

 

00:10:04:18 - 00:10:31:08

Cathy Hannabach

Nice. I find that one of the things that I see a lot in my work with authors is uncertainty about expectations or uncertainty about who's supposed to be doing what. What is the press doing versus what should they be doing as authors? Who's work is what? And I'm curious, in your experience, either in your current roles or at previous presses and companies you've worked with,

 

00:10:31:10 - 00:10:45:13

Cathy Hannabach

what are some of the common misconceptions that first-time authors in particular often have about book marketing? I'm hoping we can bust some of these assumptions and get people on the right path so that they can better market their book.

 

00:10:45:15 - 00:11:15:20

Cameron Ludwick

Awesome. Yeah, I'm gonna jump in because we were chatting about this before the webinar opened. It's the lack of control. While there's so much that you can do, there's no guarantee. It is a hustle, it's a constant hustle, and sometimes it means absolutely nothing. I worked as a publicist before I was here at Duke, and I would get books that would have just oodles and oodles of publicity, tons of events, tours, bookstores, booksellers loved it.

 

00:11:15:20 - 00:11:38:23

Cameron Ludwick

And then the sales were not there. And then I have books that have gone out super quietly. You know, maybe it's a professor emeritus, they're not really doing much networking or whatever. And then they exploded. I would love to say that there are sure things in terms of expectations. But there really is a lack of control that I think can be difficult to parse when you're starting to work together.

 

00:11:39:00 - 00:11:59:22

Cameron Ludwick

Now that said, you should rely on communication and that is something that you should ask for in terms of being confused or wanting to know what's going to happen or what’s going on. I've never been in a marketing department or heard of a marketer at a university press that's not wanted to have that phone call with an author, whether it's a Zoom, whether it's an email. We want to talk to you early and we want to lay down

 

00:11:59:22 - 00:12:16:19

Cameron Ludwick

this is what you can expect from us and here's how we would like you to amplify that. So if it's publicity, here's what we're thinking in terms of sending your book to journals. But you happen to have a personal contact to the editor of whatever, we would love for you to work that contact if that's something that you feel comfortable doing.

 

00:12:16:21 - 00:12:31:09

Cameron Ludwick

If you want to go on a big book tour, I've got 150 books a year that I've got to handle. Being able to sit down and say, okay, that's wonderful. We love that. And we can support you with getting in touch with the store to sell. But if you're going to organize it, you'll need to organize that.

 

00:12:31:11 - 00:12:37:12

Cameron Ludwick

It is a constant level of communication, and I think that's the main thing that you should expect and ask for.

 

00:12:38:16 - 00:13:03:16

Allison Means

I completely agree with that. I'll just say the one big misconception, I think, is that marketing equals mass media coverage and social media going viral. In reality, at the university press, all of our marketing is really targeted and strategic. Those are the two key things that we're looking for. So we're really looking to support the book, your work behind the scenes.

 

00:13:03:18 - 00:13:29:04

Allison Means

And again, that goes back to really strong metadata, making sure your book is discoverable, course adoption, outreach. This is not necessarily about chasing headlines. If there's an opportunity, we'll do that. But it's not always the case. I think another thing, again, probably a bit repetitive of what we said, but whatever press you're working with, we can't handle everything after publication.

 

00:13:29:08 - 00:13:53:20

Allison Means

We do a lot. But what we can't replace is the authenticity of your voice and your connections with your networks. So really, what we are doing, we're the amplifier there. And we just want you to remember always that you should not underestimate yourself and how influential you can be in your field and the questions that you can answer that we just we can't.

 

00:13:53:22 - 00:13:59:08

Cameron Ludwick

That's such a good way to put that out. I want to tattoo that somewhere. That was a really great way of putting that.

 

00:13:59:10 - 00:14:18:07

Cathy Hannabach

I mean, it makes sense. I think scholars are often not used to, nothing about PhD training encourages us to think of ourselves as somebody who has to market an idea. We went into academia because we wanted to have a different kind of career. But I think a better way,

 

00:14:18:07 - 00:14:38:21

Cathy Hannabach

and I think both of your comments illustrate this, a different way to think about marketing is just sharing your research, which all of us went into academia to do. To do the research and to share it with the communities that we care about. You're both making a really important point, I think, that the communities that you care about, you know them better than any publisher ever could.

 

00:14:38:23 - 00:15:00:00

Cathy Hannabach

So it's really a matter of identifying who those committees are that you want to speak to, that you care about, that you want to give this book to because you think it's important to them, and figuring out how to do that in the best way possible. And it’s about collaborating with your marketing director at your press, collaborating with the marketing staff at your press, to best do that.

 

00:15:00:02 - 00:15:16:11

Cathy Hannabach

Absolutely. Before we get to some of the other relationships between authors and presses, both of you have mentioned metadata quite a lot. I guarantee you there are folks in this audience who don't know what that means and what it has to do, particularly, with book marketing.

 

00:15:16:13 - 00:15:24:13

Cathy Hannabach

So from a book marketing perspective, what is a book's metadata? What are BISAC codes and what does that have to do with sales?

 

00:15:24:15 - 00:15:46:16

Cameron Ludwick

Well, this is super fun. This is where we get really, really nerdy, y'all. Here comes the TED Talk. Metadata starts everything from your ISBN. It's everything about your book, and it flows from the ISBN for your book. It is what goes through the internet pipes to make sure your book is on every platform that we want it to be on.

 

00:15:46:18 - 00:16:09:06

Cameron Ludwick

These platforms include community sales tools. We have some tools that we use behind the scenes that are online. Your Amazon page, your page of the press, your Barnes and Noble page, bookshop.org. The most important thing about metadata is we always want to lock it down early. So things like changing a title, changing a price, if your metadata is already out in the world

 

00:16:09:09 - 00:16:32:19

Cameron Ludwick

those are all big no-nos because there's no guarantee that the internet pipes are still running smoothly at that point. It's a whole lot of little bits of data that are going out in the world now. Now, indexers and web crawlers are the most important part of that. So when your press is asking you to do things like keywords and abstracts, both at a book level and at a chapter level, that's what we're gearing that toward.

 

00:16:32:19 - 00:17:01:16

Cameron Ludwick

It's so that libraries can add all of those to their search terms for other researchers. It's so that a web crawler knows that this book is about Canada in 1980, and it can find that there's a chapter in this book that does it. Most metadata is also ranked as a hierarchy. So when we're talking about things like changing your title or subtitle from your proposal, that's a lot of what we're thinking about. If the book is about Canada, we want to have the word “Canada” in the title.

 

00:17:01:18 - 00:17:18:18

Cameron Ludwick

If it's about computers, maybe we want to have something tech focused. There really does need to be a little bit of a blunt instrument when you think about packaging a book in that way. It might feel a little lowest common denominator. But we live in a world where you get a half second to see something on a screen before somebody scrolls past.

 

00:17:18:20 - 00:17:38:12

Cameron Ludwick

Making sure that all of those bits and pieces are as legible as possible and as correct as possible out in the world so that it doesn't impede somebody clicking and ordering. At Duke, we aim to have all of that info out about six months before your book's publication. On our website specifically, I believe it's five months, and I'm going to forget the date.

 

00:17:38:12 - 00:17:53:21

Cameron Ludwick

It's an actual number of days when your book opens up for pre-order, on our website. But that's not to say it's not available for pre-order on Amazon or whatever else. That's when you can start your marketing, sharing links, looping in pre-orders, getting stuff, updating your website, etc.

 

00:17:56:02 - 00:18:23:02

Allison Means

So I'll just second everything Cameron said. Also, when you're thinking about metadata, think about what books your book is in conversation with and how did you get to that book, be it on Amazon or through a discussion with a friend. What words were you using when you were talking about it and how can you best incorporate that into your book’s metadata?

 

00:18:23:04 - 00:18:45:22

Allison Means

And also again, prioritizing. Where you get dinged is, let's say that there was a chapter about carefully analyzing Harry Potter, but your book isn't Harry Potter. So where does the metadata go and how can we get it so that people know that if they're interested in scholarship about this topic, but it is not a book about this.

 

00:18:45:24 - 00:19:05:12

Allison Means

How do we how do we frame that? You can have a conversation with your marketing person about that or say, like, I'm confused about this and we'll talk about it and get it to the best place. Cameron’s have absolutely right. This is so important. And for each press it depends. Duke's timing is not the same as Iowa because we are much smaller.

 

00:19:05:16 - 00:19:25:14

Allison Means

We do things in a seasonal hunk basically. So we're right now, I'm very much focusing on all of our Fall 2026 books’ metadata and going through every single book and making sure, okay, like, here's what we think. Yes, everyone agrees on this. All of those types of things.

 

00:19:25:16 - 00:19:49:11

Allison Means

So we asked for these suggestions. We don't necessarily reach back out. I think another thing though is we don't necessarily reach back out. So if you are wondering, as the author, we want you to come forward and ask us the questions. We want to have the discussions with you. We love that you trust us and you know we are good at our jobs and we are constantly thinking about these problems and solutions to them and how we can best make things happen

 

00:19:49:11 - 00:20:08:02

Allison Means

for your book. But with that comes getting all of our ducks in a row and we'll contact you if you’re needed. But it's not always on the top of our list. So do feel free to reach out and put yourself there so we can have those conversations.

 

00:20:08:04 - 00:20:29:00

Cameron Ludwick

Let me build on that just a little bit if I can. When Allison talks about think really specifically and broadly about what your book is doing, I want to talk a little more about abstracts and keywords, especially at the chapter level. What I'm seeing is that ebooks are becoming more and more a primary format.

 

00:20:29:04 - 00:20:44:12

Cameron Ludwick

I know that's terrifying. I started in 2009, right when Kindle was starting to take off, and we all thought the industry was going to totally implode. It didn't. It's all good. And I do still think that print books will matter. It'll be interesting to see how that evolves and adapts the way the trade houses have.

 

00:20:44:12 - 00:21:04:08

Cameron Ludwick

But certainly for academic publishing, libraries and their ebook collections have played a huge role and are playing a bigger role. We're seeing students and we're seeing faculty getting more and more comfortable with using electronic editions and having their students use them. So when we're asking for things like abstracts and keywords, all of that goes into how we produce an ebook.

 

00:21:04:10 - 00:21:19:21

Cameron Ludwick

There are services that do all of this packaging they call it. I wish I could get that technical with it. I cannot. But all of that info flows into the ebook, and it makes your book more discoverable and more useful for both librarians to acquire it and then for end users to access it.

 

00:21:19:23 - 00:21:36:08

Allison Means

I'll just say one more thing too. So with the long arc, the other thing that we're striving to do is keeping your metadata fresh. So even though your book has been out for a year, if something else has happened to make it relevant, send a quick email and we'll see, like, okay, what can we put in the metadata?

 

00:21:36:12 - 00:21:49:16

Allison Means

How can we try this out? So it goes not as possibly a pitch to somebody, but it goes in that back matter to the unseen things that really are going to push your book out visibility-wise on any given search.

 

00:21:49:18 - 00:22:06:24

Cameron Ludwick

Yeah. And Kit, I actually I want to call out in the chat really quick in terms of multiple versions showing up. That's why we want it locked in early and we don't want it to change because that's what happens. Once it's out there, it is incredibly difficult to fix and it is incredibly difficult to erase. I wish I had a better answer for how we could do that.

 

00:22:06:24 - 00:22:20:02

Cameron Ludwick

My only hope is that one day we will. But yeah, at the moment it's really, really difficult. So once that stuff is out there and it gets locked in, we want it to stay locked.

 

00:22:20:04 - 00:22:48:14

Cathy Hannabach

Nice. I think part of what this is illustrating is that marketing has both technical elements to it and maybe more holistic or subjective elements. I think authors are probably more familiar with the more subjective side of things in terms of talking to their community, trying to think about what courses could my book be taught in, or what conferences do I regularly go to where I could talk about my book or where my publisher might want to exhibit?

 

00:22:48:16 - 00:23:09:05

Cathy Hannabach

But the technical side of things, because it's on the production side, I feel like it is completely opaque to authors. I hope this is helpful as an introduction to metadata and it's importance in book sales and marketing. But we could do an entire webinar just on that. There are many, many webinars, I'm sure both of you do these a lot.

 

00:23:09:07 - 00:23:12:07

Cathy Hannabach

But it is interesting that these are two different sides of it.

 

00:23:12:09 - 00:23:29:20

Cameron Ludwick

Yeah. And what's so funny is it is both so old school and so new school. Like ISBNs have been around for so long. Talk about a fun, nerdy Wikipedia hole to go down. Like, do it. Click into it. The history of the ISBN is wild, it can be really wild.

 

00:23:29:20 - 00:23:52:14

Cameron Ludwick

And it is something I would have never learned until I became a publisher, started going to these conferences, started learning. And now it's changing so much. We get invited to webinars by the Book Industry Study Group, they manage BISACs. That's updated every year. So we are constantly in a continuing education thing that we have to stay on top of.

 

00:23:52:16 - 00:24:16:20

Cathy Hannabach

So to go back to something that both of you have mentioned in different ways, is this topic of self-promotion. I get this question, or maybe complaint, quite a lot from authors that I work with. I know both of you do too. I think anyone in publishing experiences this. So many scholarly authors in particular are not particularly interested in self-promotion or at least wary of it,

 

00:24:16:20 - 00:24:40:21

Cathy Hannabach

if not actively resistant to it. I get that it can feel weird. It can feel super awkward. It feels like you're a used car salesman, hawking your book to anyone who you happen to have a conversation with, and that feels icky. No one likes that. But I think part of what this webinar and what I think all three of our work is about is saying that that's not what book marketing actually is.

 

00:24:40:23 - 00:24:54:13

Cathy Hannabach

So I'm curious, from your perspective, in your experience, what are some easy, authentic, non-skeezy ways, that authors can promote their books visibility without feeling like they're constantly trying to hawk something?

 

00:24:54:15 - 00:24:57:00

Cameron Ludwick

Oh that's exciting. Allison, do want to start this one?

 

00:24:57:02 - 00:24:57:13

Allison Means

Sure.

 

00:24:58:17 - 00:25:23:02

Allison Means

Yes, this comes up all the time. And Cathy, I love that you said used car salesman because literally once a month I talk to students, or once a semester I talk to students about how I got into publishing and how I had the assumption that I think truly 90% of people that go into publishing do, that I wanted to be an editor. Because that is the job you've heard of that's on TV, all the things.

 

00:25:23:04 - 00:25:31:12

Allison Means

I went to a grad school program, the Denver Publishing Institute, and the first two weeks were all focused on editing. I remember calling my mom and being like,

 

00:25:31:14 - 00:25:33:11

Cathy Hannabach

I hate it, what am I going to do?

 

00:25:33:13 - 00:25:50:10

Allison Means

And because I had the assumption that being in marketing would be like being a used car salesman, that's all I could think of. But as soon as we got into it, I was like, oh, so I just get to talk to people all day about books that I like. That's not the same thing. I love doing that.

 

00:25:50:11 - 00:26:17:00

Allison Means

So that is the perfect analogy. And to think of it for yourself, just like I did. I happened to do that for a lot of books. But think of it in terms of your own book. So we tell our authors that you don't want to feel like you're hawking your book but what you are putting out in the world is yourself, and your book is a resource that people want information from and want to know more about.

 

00:26:17:02 - 00:26:34:15

Allison Means

There are always going to be opportunities where you're just sharing how your book connects. You don't have to end that with “and buy my book!” You're just putting your name out there, whether that's in the form of an op-ed that explore something and that you have this in your byline that mentions the book.

 

00:26:34:15 - 00:26:52:18

Allison Means

Or again, when you're at the conference and you're in relevant circles, people want to know that resources are available. That's why you're there. So it shouldn't feel icky. It should just feel like you’re not pressuring anyone to buy this book. But just so you know, it exists, if you want to know more, we can have a conversation.

 

00:26:52:20 - 00:27:15:06

Allison Means

That's again where that immediate yes and being open to have the conversations, whether that's on a podcast, at a panel, in a roundtable, you want to say yes. It's just keeping your relevance out there and doing the things that you are naturally inclined to do anyway. That's how it stays authentic because you want people to know this information.

 

00:27:15:06 - 00:27:23:02

Allison Means

That's why you've written the book. We ask authors to frame their mindset that way instead of I'm trying to sell my book.

 

00:27:23:07 - 00:27:41:20

Cameron Ludwick

Yes, 100%. And a couple things, reminding yourself that everybody else is doing this too. Like, when's the last time you judged a colleague because they were talking about their new book project? They're not judging you. I promise everybody isn’t. It's like going to an exercise class. Everybody's worried about themselves. I promise they're not watching you or judging you.

 

00:27:41:22 - 00:27:57:14

Cameron Ludwick

Those are the organic conversations. I think of conferences as being the main nexus, really, for a lot of these academic titles. That’s where the conversation is, and your book is meant to be an intervention in those spaces. So of course you should talk about it and be open about it.

 

00:27:57:16 - 00:28:11:15

Cameron Ludwick

I think for me also, it's just do the little things, start with the little things. You don't have to go full on, like don't start social media if you're not already doing it. Don't try to start a podcast. We can talk about that trend later, because that's a crazy trend.

 

00:28:11:17 - 00:28:33:04

Cameron Ludwick

But do the little things: put the book in the link in your email signature, make sure your faculty page is updated. Make sure you're working with your department’s or your university's communications office to send a notice that your book is out. Take advantage of any of those small opportunities. There are so many departments that have a faculty bookshelf or do a poster in the hallway, take advantage of those things

 

00:28:33:06 - 00:28:52:07

Cameron Ludwick

because you never know who's going to see what, where, when, and then come and send you an email, come up to you in a conference, pick up your book when they see the cover on the publisher’s table. All of those little things are geared toward, what's the Mad Men classic? You have to see something six times before you actually pick it up or buy it or click it.

 

00:28:52:09 - 00:28:59:03

Cameron Ludwick

All of that snowballs. Start with the little things and just talk about it. Talk about your work organically with your colleagues.

 

00:28:59:05 - 00:29:20:07

Allison Means

Yeah. And one more thing, too. As you're doing those little things, think SEO. Every time that you can get your book linked or yourself linked to another page that's legit and talking about the topic you want to be involved in, or another book that you want your book to be in conversation, your SEO goes up so you will be more likely to be found in a search.

 

00:29:20:11 - 00:29:28:08

Allison Means

So anytime you can get those connections out there, link back to your book, link back to your publisher. All of those things do help, and they accrue over time.

 

00:29:28:10 - 00:29:53:23

Cameron Ludwick

Can I talk about one really depressing thing really quick? Sorry, let me break it down for a hot second. When Allison said link back to your publisher, that is still always and forever going to be your publisher's preferred link if you share a link. If Amazon matters to you, Amazon has recently rejiggered their algorithm, and they are now referencing external links that point to an Amazon page.

 

00:29:54:00 - 00:30:13:01

Cameron Ludwick

Now, I don't think anybody needs to be chasing the algorithm, the Amazon algorithm. But in terms of a weird, depressing state of publishing, that is very much what the Amazon machine is trying to get you to do. They don't want you to share bookshop.org, they don't want you to share IndieBound or your publisher's website.

 

00:30:13:01 - 00:30:25:22

Cameron Ludwick

They want you to share Amazon websites. It's an unfortunate truth, but I don't know. I just wanted to mention that because that's one of these crazy things that I'm keeping an eye on. And that algorithm changes way more than it ought to.

 

00:30:26:04 - 00:30:56:11

Cathy Hannabach

That's something to think about as an author. You don't have to be an expert in SEO. You don't have to be an expert on whatever Amazon decides it wants to think it could do today. I mean, that's part of the pleasure and the privilege of working with a marketing team at a press, where their staff's job is literally to keep track of this stuff and keep track of the ever-changing algorithm and try to figure out what on earth we can do to increase a book’s reach in relationship to that.

 

00:30:56:13 - 00:31:22:21

Cathy Hannabach

But I think what you're both pointing out is that there are really easy, concrete, low-effort things that authors can do that link up to those other more technical practices or more complex practices or just more confusing practices that the press’s marketing team is already on top of. So communicating with your marketing team at your press about here's what I'm doing.

 

00:31:22:23 - 00:31:35:09

Cathy Hannabach

What are you doing? How can I best support you in this process? This is how you get the whole publisher behind your book.

 

00:31:35:11 - 00:31:59:16

Cathy Hannabach

So let's zoom out a little bit and talk about timing, because I often hear from authors that I'll start marketing my book when it comes out. And of course, that's not when marketing starts. It starts long before you even find a publisher. So from your perspectives, when do you think authors should start to think about marketing their book, even if the book doesn't exist in book format yet?

 

00:31:59:18 - 00:32:07:11

Cathy Hannabach

And how does that change for the author as the book moves toward and then beyond publication?

 

00:32:07:13 - 00:32:23:20

Cameron Ludwick

I mean, for me, it's a proposal stage, like as soon as you have an inkling that you are going to turn this into a book, you should be thinking about what's the frame? You know, I talked about key selling points earlier. Selling points. That's the moment you want to think about that. And that's also what makes a great book proposal is thinking through these key selling points.

 

00:32:23:20 - 00:32:44:00

Cameron Ludwick

Why this book? Why this topic? Why now? And what am I doing that's unique? And that's a really easy thing to start from. What? We don't want you to do too much of, And let me, let me say this is, think too granularly about things like cover art, like title. We want you to do that, make the best book possible.

 

00:32:44:00 - 00:33:15:11

Cameron Ludwick

That, for me, is along with author involvement the silver bullet in a successful book or what we would consider a successful book. The book's got to be good. So when you're thinking about and you're writing through it, sometimes it can be helpful to work a little backwards, like, I want my book to do these three things as selling points and having that frame in mind as you're walking through it and making sure you're being really clear about these selling points in your thesis and how this is going to speak to your fields, I think can be really, really good things.

 

00:33:15:13 - 00:33:35:24

Cameron Ludwick

In terms of specifics, platform is one of those things as an academic. I do not come from academia, the closest I get is academic publishing. Even just in terms of the job market, working on a platform and having your author website, keeping all that stuff up to date and clean is all part of that.

 

00:33:35:24 - 00:33:48:19

Cameron Ludwick

And that happens pre-publication, pre-book. Then for us really it's at that marketing questionnaire level when we start wanting you to think about the nitty gritty of it. That's when we'll start asking you to get more specific.

 

00:33:48:21 - 00:34:09:13

Allison Means

That is a great answer, and I don't have a ton to add to that. We want the same things. I think the only thing I would add is we want you to be able to cogently and quickly say to us, the layperson, the person who doesn't come from academia, we want you to be able to answer those questions for us.

 

00:34:09:15 - 00:34:33:16

Allison Means

Why do I care about this book? What conversations are being had about this? Who's in them? And how does my book fit into that particular marketplace? We are really looking for that information at the marketing stage. But again, as Cameron very succinctly said, that starts when you're writing the book and you're proposing it.

 

00:34:33:17 - 00:34:50:21

Allison Means

We feel the same way. I think most publishers or most publishers that I've been in conversation with have the same thought of the nitty gritty comes later. The book cover, all of those things. And that is where we do want you to trust us as your publisher.

 

00:34:50:21 - 00:35:09:03

Allison Means

You should be only signing a contract with a publisher that you feel is also going to support your work the way that you want it to be supported. Think about what is your idea of success, how do you see success for your book? That can be a very actually different answer for different authors.

 

00:35:09:03 - 00:35:32:05

Allison Means

It is that that will help us come up with a plan that works toward your goal of success as well as our goal of success. So it's something that you should have in mind from the get-go and be asking yourselves these kinds of questions so that if you run into a speed bump or you have something where you and your publisher are not aligned, you can have that conversation and say, here are my expectations.

 

00:35:32:11 - 00:36:02:09

Allison Means

Does that align with what your press does? You should just start by noticing things. Whatever publishers you're looking at, where are you seeing their books now? What do their covers look like? How are they placing things? You can easily answer those questions without reaching out. That's one avenue, but also it is okay to ask other authors who publish with that press, what was your experience with them?

 

00:36:02:09 - 00:36:14:20

Allison Means

I'm looking for this. Do you think you'll get that or did you want that when you published? That way, you're setting yourself up for a positive experience from A to Z.

 

00:36:15:10 - 00:36:20:09

Cameron Ludwick

I want to say to something a little bit about expectations.

 

00:36:21:22 - 00:36:42:17

Cameron Ludwick

This is not a knock against editors. This has been a lot of publishers I've talked to and publishers I've worked at. The expectations game can get a little skewed between acquisitions and books marketing. I think part of that is editors showing excitement about things and sometimes they can oversell the experience a bit.

 

00:36:42:17 - 00:36:59:06

Cameron Ludwick

That's a really crude way of putting it. I think a lot of authors get their hopes up about becoming a bestseller, even as an academic book, or all of these things are going to happen. And that's not necessarily the case. I think that disconnect is where we see authors that get disappointed.

 

00:36:59:08 - 00:37:15:03

Cameron Ludwick

Again, I don't want this to be a call out. It is not any one specific editor or publisher, but I think it's a pretty common experience that folks come in with a proposal on a manuscript, and they think all of these big things are going to happen, and there will be titles in the catalog and they’re all going to get all the effort.

 

00:37:15:03 - 00:37:31:05

Cameron Ludwick

But at Duke, we're doing 150 books a year, and that just can't be the case for all of them. It can be hard for editors to be really realistic, early in the process before we talk to you, to be really realistic about what those expectations are and what success looks like, because it's very different.

 

00:37:31:05 - 00:37:37:12

Cameron Ludwick

It's different book to book, author to author, year to year. It changes constantly.

 

00:37:37:14 - 00:37:59:24

Cathy Hannabach

I'd also encourage folks to be really upfront with the acquisitions editors that they talk to early on about what are you imagining as the success of your book. Not about numbers and sales and that kind of stuff, but if there is a specific community that you want to read this book, that should be part of your conversation right up front, especially if it's not inherently obvious.

 

00:37:59:24 - 00:38:39:24

Cathy Hannabach

So let's say you are a tenure-track academic. This is your tenure book. Say you're in an anthropology department and you're writing a book that's obviously somehow engaging anthropology. And so presumably scholars in anthropology are going to be a primary audience. But if you also want to speak to medical practitioners or artists or activists or community organizers, whatever your topic might be, that should be part of the conversation and certainly part of your book proposal right up front, because that's going to dramatically shape not only how you frame the book as a writer but also how your acquisitions editor is going to frame the

 

00:38:39:24 - 00:39:04:15

Cathy Hannabach

book when they are pitching it to their bosses, to the editorial board. And it's going to shape how the marketing staff is going to market that book. Those are very different audiences, scholars in anthropology versus community activists or medical practitioners or whomever. When you're thinking about audiences, don't hold it back, don't wait till the marketing stage and be like, why did no doctor buy my book?

 

00:39:04:15 - 00:39:11:15

Cathy Hannabach

And they’re like, we had no idea that you cared about that. We would have framed this completely differently. So just communicate that right up front.

 

00:39:11:17 - 00:39:29:22

Cameron Ludwick

Absolutely. Yeah. It's so interesting to talk about that too because at every level, somebody is speaking to a different audience. You're telling the editor about your book and you're framing it one way, the editor is telling their the editorial board about your book and they're framing it a different way, because that's a totally different audience.

 

00:39:29:22 - 00:39:44:17

Cameron Ludwick

And then we're launching the book and they're talking to the marketing team, and now we're framing it yet another way. And then we are working with you and with all of this extra info and then trying to frame it for the public, or for other academics. So, yeah, be upfront with that.

 

00:39:44:17 - 00:40:02:02

Cameron Ludwick

More material is great. I will always and forever take what an author is writing about they think their book is about. What is in your intro? What is in your conclusion? What have you said is the most important thing in this book? Because it does go through a lot of iterations.

 

00:40:02:04 - 00:40:27:21

Cathy Hannabach

Nice. I'm curious about how authors can best work with your marketing teams. We've talked about things that an author could do themselves. You talked about what the marketing team itself is doing behind the scenes and in public. But let's talk about how to make that relationship more productive. From your perspective, what can an author do to be a great collaborator for your marketing team?

 

00:40:27:21 - 00:40:38:03

Cathy Hannabach

Are there things that they can do, either early in the process or late in the process, that support your work better and make it more effective?

 

00:40:38:05 - 00:40:42:06

Cameron Ludwick

An interesting question. Allison, if you have an easy answer, please feel free.

 

00:40:44:04 - 00:41:02:21

Allison Means

I'm not sure I have an easy answer. For us, we feel like the best collaborators are engaged, they're realistic, and they're communicative. We love to work with someone who really will trust our expertise. And again, there's a reason you signed the contract with us. But we also don't want you to be passive.

 

00:41:02:21 - 00:41:22:08

Allison Means

We want to hear from you. We want we want your opinion on top of all the things that we know. Those are all the ingredients for the cake of marketing. We want authors who share ideas but also who understand that we have constraints and things that we can't do.

 

00:41:22:08 - 00:41:43:04

Allison Means

Not every idea can be executed or we aren't able to execute it. Our mantra is you know, to be, transparent about that and say, like, here's what we can do for your book. Here's, you know, here's why you publish with us. We have a great tie into this market. And there, you know, we have, you know, reviewers, authors, etc., who are looking for books.

 

00:41:43:08 - 00:42:02:21

Allison Means

Your book will be found here because we can do this for you. And then you can add your, you know, special magic of knowledge to that mix. And we so it's really just being open to that collaboration and having that trust on both ends that makes things really, you know, a pleasant, a pleasant experience for everyone.

 

00:42:02:23 - 00:42:24:03

Cameron Ludwick

Yeah. Communication is always and forever going to be number one. I was trying to think a little more specifically, too, in terms of communication. Where stuff gets lost for me are giant email chains. Sometimes that's organic and it happens.

 

00:42:24:03 - 00:42:39:01

Cameron Ludwick

But it's always nice to revisit what did we actually want to get to when we started this whole chain and we started going back and forth about event bookings and review copies and whatever. Sometimes being able to sit down and just say, summary, summary, this is the next action point.

 

00:42:39:01 - 00:42:56:23

Cameron Ludwick

This is what I would like to do. This is what I would like for you all to do. The other thing is don't be afraid of a phone call. I used to work in restaurants and I remember training a new hostess once. She was so afraid to even just do a pretend phone call for a taco order.

 

00:42:57:03 - 00:43:17:11

Cameron Ludwick

I feel like now people are so scared to pick up the phone, and I'm guilty of it too. I just don't think anymore of a phone call as being the quickest way to get an answer. But oftentimes it is. I like thinking out loud, that's a big generative thing for me. So sometimes an email chain is not necessarily going to get us to the most successful conclusion.

 

00:43:17:13 - 00:43:40:03

Cameron Ludwick

Other things that have not always worked well, at least for me specifically, is trying to put things in a shared drive or a shared document. If I have to go check multiple places and they're not my places, it's difficult to manage that. I think those can be great reference points, but something like that should always be author ownership.

 

00:43:40:05 - 00:43:55:00

Cameron Ludwick

And then maybe we are having a call about it and you want to link me to your contacts that you've put together for people who might potentially adopt the book so that I can have that resource there. Trying to do collaborative Google Docs and things have not always worked.

 

00:43:55:02 - 00:44:12:16

Allison Means

Yeah, I had the exact same experience. We actually have lots of authors who work with publicists as well and so we'll have that conversation early on and I'll say, I love the Google shared drive, but please do not ask me to just periodically check it for things you want me to do. That is never going to work.

 

00:44:12:22 - 00:44:13:19

Allison Means

I won't do it.

 

00:44:13:21 - 00:44:34:02

Allison Means

Because we have very specific processes we need to follow to make sure that your book is getting all the things that it can out of working with us. Those have to come first. All these extras, these conversations, are great cherries on top but they can't be our focus all the time.

 

00:44:34:02 - 00:44:51:16

Allison Means

We're working with many books at any given time, as Cameron said. I always say the same thing. You'll never be rid of me. You can cut off ties with all the other people at the press except for me.

 

00:44:51:20 - 00:45:08:11

Allison Means

But the flip side of that is that I'm still hearing from authors whose books are 10, 15 years old with questions that are important. And then I need to answer and address what's going on with the frontlist books.

 

00:45:08:13 - 00:45:26:01

Cathy Hannabach

Yes. So this has been, I hope, incredibly helpful to folks who are here. I’d love in the last a few minutes to get to some of the questions that were posted in the Q&A. If anyone listening still has questions, you can hit that Q&A button at the bottom of your screen and you can still submit stuff.

 

00:45:26:03 - 00:45:33:21

Cathy Hannabach

One person asks, what are some of the most creative ways that you've seen people market their books?

 

00:45:33:23 - 00:46:08:00

Cameron Ludwick

I've been looking at this, and I've been trying to think about it because I've got some good ideas back in there. I'm trying to wrack my brain. I think of swag a lot. I think sometimes swag can be really fun. We had some authors who did a book on the K-pop band BTS, and talk about starting early. They were at the Asian Studies conference a year before their book even came out with stickers and postcards and a fun little slogan with the BTS Army involved, which was really great and really fun and cute.

 

00:46:08:09 - 00:46:28:16

Cameron Ludwick

I think it made people think about the book again when it came back around. I've had some really cool events that authors have done. I think the thing about events is it's always good to hitch yourself to something else. So if there's a humanities center on your campus, offer up an event for that.

 

00:46:28:16 - 00:46:48:05

Cameron Ludwick

If there's a really interesting interlocutor that you want to have a Q&A with, that is a way better sell than just I'm going to stand up here at this dais and talk about my book. If it's a conversation, if it's an interesting conversation partner, if it's with an interesting group, all of those things I think are big difference makers.

 

00:46:48:07 - 00:47:08:24

Allison Means

I completely agree. We've had similar experiences. We did a book about Supernatural, fans of the TV show Supernatural. We went to the fan cons for that show, and the authors were all about it. They knew the stars of the show and had fun pictures of them holding the book, holding the galleys, things like that.

 

00:47:08:24 - 00:47:33:11

Allison Means

So there's all these. I would say, don't be afraid to put yourself out there because that's not something you might necessarily think someone would be responsive to. But in our experience, they are. I mean, who doesn't want a book written about them or have their expertise touched on? So those are maybe either really obvious or less obvious, but fun tie-ins.

 

00:47:33:20 - 00:47:43:21

Allison Means

Those are the marketing campaigns that have those mini fingers, they can go out to the broader audiences and show the relevance of your book in a way that people aren't instinctually thinking about.

 

00:47:43:23 - 00:47:55:02

Cathy Hannabach

Yeah. Nice. One of the other questions in the Q&A is, do you have any specific advice for authors who are independent scholars versus those who are affiliated with organizations or institutions?

 

00:47:55:04 - 00:48:21:08

Cameron Ludwick

The keyword is platform. The more that you can shore up this idea of your expertise and your public expertise, the better. So even though you're an independent scholar, doing op-eds, pitching things, pitching reviews of other books at the publications. Something I'd written down to address is you get what you give in the book market.

 

00:48:21:08 - 00:48:38:09

Cameron Ludwick

It's fun to hear fiction writers talk about this. More writers will be willing, I think, to review your book if you've reviewed their stuff. There is very much a reciprocity, it’s a reciprocal market. That's a little bit of a part of it, too. And for public scholars, I think that can make a big difference.

 

00:48:38:11 - 00:48:54:04

Cameron Ludwick

Like if you are working two years ahead and you're like, hey, can I write up this short thing for you? Or, hey, can I review this book for external whatever that gives you name recognition, so you're not just coming out of the blue with a book project and saying, hey, here, I have this thing and you should care about it.

 

00:48:54:06 - 00:49:00:07

Cameron Ludwick

You've already been in there and you've been working with their community and with their folks to make your name recognizable.

 

00:49:00:09 - 00:49:19:17

Allison Means

Yes. We call it being a good literary citizen. It's exactly that. You are putting yourself out there and you're offering to do something versus asking for something. Building those networks early and authentically is something you want to do anyway.

 

00:49:19:17 - 00:49:30:22

Allison Means

Or you would enjoy doing a book, you would enjoy writing about, or reviewing in whatever publication, those things do absolutely come back around.

 

00:49:30:24 - 00:49:39:06

Cathy Hannabach

Somebody asks about titling, are you involved? When are you involved with conversations about book titles and subtitles?

 

00:49:39:08 - 00:49:42:21

Cameron Ludwick

Oh, this is going to be it. This is going to get the flamethrower out, Allison.

 

00:49:42:23 - 00:49:44:10

Allison Means

Yeah. Maybe.

 

00:49:44:12 - 00:50:07:23

Cameron Ludwick

Yes. Okay, so this is fun and it can sometimes be really contentious. Sometimes it can be contentious between marketing and editorial, between marketing and authors, between editorial and marketing and authors. It can all get really intense. I come from marketing, so of course I'm going to say this: To me, marketing owns the exterior of the book while editorial owns the interior of the book.

 

00:50:08:04 - 00:50:26:14

Cameron Ludwick

I touched on this earlier: sometimes we want to be a blunt instrument a little bit with a title. Duke loves a two-word phrase and a subtitle, and sometimes they can be pretty opaque. I want it to be patently obvious, even to people in your field. This book is talking about this topic.

 

00:50:26:16 - 00:50:44:05

Cameron Ludwick

I want those keywords. I want them in there, and I want them up top. We talked about a hierarchy of metadata when they're doing web crawls. Your title has more weight in the algorithm than your subtitle does. So the better weight and keywords you can give to these things, the more likely your book will get discovered in search.

 

00:50:44:07 - 00:50:59:20

Cameron Ludwick

If you don't have any of those keywords in there, if BTS is not part of the subtitle for the BTS book, that's going to be a problem. So yes, we are very involved. I try to be very involved. That's when we're looking at launching a book into a season and it's around that stage when

 

00:50:59:20 - 00:51:02:01

Cameron Ludwick

we're trying to lock in the metadata.

 

00:51:02:03 - 00:51:20:18

Allison Means

It's the exact same at Iowa. I hate titles with a clever bit, too clever by half is what I called it, where I'm like, that's super clever but I had to read the book to know how clever you were. I just need to get to the book.

 

00:51:20:18 - 00:51:33:05

Allison Means

That's all I need. I always advise authors don't do a slash or a parentheses in your title because all that does is make it not discoverable.

 

00:51:33:06 - 00:51:35:08

Cameron Ludwick

It screws up the internet pipes. Yes.

 

00:51:35:10 - 00:51:38:09

Cathy Hannabach

Absolutely, absolutely yes.

 

00:51:38:14 - 00:51:39:10

Cameron Ludwick

Don't do it.

 

00:51:39:11 - 00:51:40:18

Allison Means

Don't do it.

 

00:51:40:20 - 00:52:03:08

Cameron Ludwick

Let me add two more. The unknown quote, a partial quote, and it's not “I have a dream.” It's something that's so marginal and out there and from the middle of a sentence, but like, who knows? And then coining words. Unless it's a really, really obvious one. We did a book on bees when I was at Kentucky and it was Beeconomy.

 

00:52:03:08 - 00:52:28:12

Cameron Ludwick

Beeconomy. Great. Fine. We can work with that. But if you're just coming up with a new term that nobody in your field has ever done or worked with before, not a great title because people don't know what they're looking at. And I get it. It's the main point of your book and you're doing this thing, but it is really difficult as a title to say, let me sell you on this thing that's never been, that nobody's ever heard of before, even though this is the field that they're speaking to.

 

00:52:28:14 - 00:52:29:20

Allison Means

Yes.

 

00:52:33:12 - 00:52:41:17

Cathy Hannabach

Somebody else asks, do you have any advice for reaching out to colleagues or departments to see if they're interested in inviting you for a book talk?

 

00:52:41:19 - 00:53:08:05

Cameron Ludwick

I have had some authors who have done this really, really successfully. And I think about course adoption a lot. I'm sure you've all received these emails like, you might really like such and such to teach with or to consider for your upcoming semester. It's work. It's labor to find these professors who are teaching in areas and seminars that you might be well qualified to speak to.

 

00:53:08:07 - 00:53:30:06

Cameron Ludwick

Absolutely. There's legwork there. But I think of it as that kind of thing, like, hey, you know, I know you're teaching X, Y, and Z. I've got this new book out, and I've got a really great talk that students might find helpful. Give them the “so what?” always. Also keeping it short, that's the biggest thing that you really have to learn as a publicist is you need it right up front.

 

00:53:30:06 - 00:53:49:24

Cameron Ludwick

Up top. Yeah. One of the Duke authors that did this really successfully is an author named Mimi Khúc. Her book, dear elia, she did a big tour for it, did a ton of campus talks. Sometimes it can be even including a link to a YouTube video of something you've done previously.

 

00:53:50:01 - 00:53:57:24

Cameron Ludwick

But I think being really clear about this is why I'm asking. And this is why it would be great for your students to, to talk about it.

 

00:53:58:12 - 00:54:16:00

Allison Means

Again, this goes back to what we were saying: the pitch itself needs to be short. And then you give them the links to your platform or to additional Q&A things that they supplementarily can read if they want to, but you've already given them just the nuts and bolts right there.

 

00:54:16:02 - 00:54:32:14

Allison Means

The authors that we work with that have the most success with this already know the series they're wanting to pitch and they know why. Or if they're unsure, we help them refine that pitch and when to send it out, all of these types of things.

 

00:54:32:14 - 00:54:49:09

Allison Means

We work with them on the timing and like, okay, maybe this is a little long, why don't you add this as a link. Those types of things. They do usually have like here are the series I have in mind at these campuses and here's when I think I can do this. And then it's just go.

 

00:54:49:11 - 00:55:02:06

Cathy Hannabach

Nice. So last question before we have to wrap things up. How do things like blurbs, awards, and advance sales actually make an impact on marketing?

 

00:55:02:19 - 00:55:30:17

Cameron Ludwick

I'm getting all my all my flamethrowers out. A couple different ways to think about it. I do think for academic books, blurbs can make a difference. Do they make the most difference? Not really, in my opinion. I think people know pretty well up top if they're going to be interested in a book based on the title, based on the cover, you've already picked it up from a conference table.

 

00:55:32:01 - 00:55:51:12

Cameron Ludwick

That's what's gotten you to pick that book up. Now, I do think for academic books, if you have good blurbs, it can help sell somebody. But most of the scholars I've talked to, they want to see the table of contents. They want to read the introduction. So it's not something that I stress about, although traditionally I think folks have really stressed about it.

 

00:55:51:12 - 00:56:08:23

Cameron Ludwick

And I think in the same way, it's become more and more difficult for scholars to volunteer as readers for future projects and for presses to find readers for future projects. Same with blurbs. Was it Simon and Schuster that totally canceled having their authors ask for blurbs about a year, year and a half ago?

 

00:56:09:07 - 00:56:11:14

Cathy Hannabach

I think so, yeah. Yeah, I remember that.

 

00:56:11:16 - 00:56:40:07

Cameron Ludwick

And it does read a little false sometimes. We're talking about tropes and I'm sure you can all write an academic book blurb in your sleep for anything. For nothing. So I don't know that those matter as much. Awards, I think, can make more of a difference. I know for us, we're always trying to find the balance between awards that might actually be achievable and the cost of those awards.

 

00:56:40:07 - 00:56:59:18

Cameron Ludwick

And then also, oh, my God, why do 70 authors want to apply for the National Book Award? God bless you. It's not going to happen. It very much might, but a lot of these do not nominate work from university presses. It's really, really rare. It tends to be in poetry and fiction, which Iowa has an incredible list for.

 

00:56:59:20 - 00:57:06:04

Cameron Ludwick

But yeah, I think awards and especially the really specific association awards can be a good thing.

 

00:57:06:06 - 00:57:26:13

Allison Means

Yes. Same answer actually. We've had the same discussion about do we need two blurbs for this book? Can we just do one? What is the most important? But it’s work, to beat a dead horse. We're going back to what does the metadata say? We need to make sure that these things happen, and that to me is very secondary.

 

00:57:26:15 - 00:57:47:23

Allison Means

And we have the same thing about awards. While we would love to submit to all the awards, it's actually a lot of work to do award submissions. It takes a ton of administrative bandwidth, and depending on what press you're with, they may just not have the ability to do so. What we like to do, again, is we want that conversation with you.

 

00:57:47:23 - 00:58:06:03

Allison Means

Like, okay, here are the four that we've we agree on are going to be the most significant. If you win that or you get a long list, other readers will see and the press needs to submit to or the author, then we have that dance, we do that.

 

00:58:06:05 - 00:58:25:11

Allison Means

That also is, again, back to that long arc. We're submitting for that award possibly even two years after your book has been submitted. In our minds, we're planning this stuff early to know what cycle to get you in when we have to have materials, and then saying, okay, putting a note.

 

00:58:25:11 - 00:58:41:05

Allison Means

However, we track this a year and a half from now, this is going to be our priority. The other thing that I love is an author who also has a those priorities and marks that year and a half in their calendar to say like, hey, Allison, you know, just making sure this is still on your radar.

 

00:58:41:07 - 00:58:57:22

Allison Means

That way we're staying on the same page. We're saying all the things, and what we can do is, like the awards winning, is it all it goes back to we put that in your metadata. It will go on the top in bold on your book description, all of that.

 

00:58:58:02 - 00:59:18:22

Allison Means

So it all just feeds back into the machine. It keeps everything fresh. It keeps things moving. It's another reason for us to send out an additional email with the table of contents or whatever we want out there. It can be very important. But what I think a misconception is that you've won this award,

 

00:59:18:22 - 00:59:24:18

Allison Means

now everyone's going to buy your book. And unfortunately, we do not live in that world anymore.

 

00:59:24:20 - 00:59:26:23

Cameron Ludwick

Yeah. What it does help with, though, is your next book.

 

00:59:27:00 - 00:59:27:21

Allison Means

Yes.

 

00:59:27:23 - 00:59:44:16

Cameron Ludwick

Having that award for your next book helps a huge amount. And I wanted to say one other thing about blurbs too. I love a blurb from a reader's report, because oftentimes those folks feel like there might be a conflict of interest if they later write a review. I don't want to go approach new people because I want them to write a review.

 

00:59:44:16 - 00:59:53:02

Cameron Ludwick

I want them to write something publicly and not just for the back cover of the book in 70 words. So, yeah, that's the last thing on blurbs from me.

 

00:59:53:04 - 01:00:14:09

Cathy Hannabach

Nice. We need to wrap up because we're at 2 pm here, but I want to thank all of you for joining us today. A really big thank you to Allison and Cameron for sharing all of this expertise and advice and ways that folks can better work with their press to market their books. I hope if you take away one thing from today it's that book marketing is not about doing everything.

 

01:00:14:11 - 01:00:37:06

Cathy Hannabach

It really is about understanding where your efforts matter most for your particular project and your particular communities, and how to best collaborate with your press in that process. You're all going to be receiving a recording of this session in the next week or so, so keep an eye on your inbox. And while this is our final session in our spring Publishing Series lineup, the Publishing Series will be back in the fall.

 

01:00:37:08 - 01:00:44:21

Cathy Hannabach

So keep an eye on our social media for more information about that. Thank you all again, and I will see you all next time.

 

01:00:44:23 - 01:00:47:01

Cameron Ludwick

Thank you, Cathy. I love doing these. This was great.

 

01:00:47:07 - 01:00:48:15

Allison Means

Yes. Very fun.